surrounded by beauty

LOVE IS BLUE & SEA

if you turn the machine parts
inside a clock, or if you

see through your lover's eyes that love
is blue and sea
shells its way into your heart, and

if you look long enough at the horizon
of any country

you'll see music the way
a friend hears
your absence

A figured eight
and then a turn on
the minor fifth

as a finger waves, wags
and pivots off
its bass


I am in love
with all of the blisters that
music makes and



wear them like proud wounds
on my sleeve

truth is
I never played the bass, it
played me

Last Wish

After having passed off wish
one with ridding us of poverty, and two
with eradicating war, I would piss away

wish three in granting that
in a moment of subtlety

Margaret Atwood would write
about great sex. I don’t much care

what kind – lesbian, bi-
sexual, threesome, or even
simply missionary because
I don’t much care
which way her pendulum swings – I would

just want for her

to have this cultural treasure.
Then I could spend the rest of my days

hoping that it is tucked
deep inside her
practical underwear drawer.

I spent last week undercover. Sick and dazed and taking in so little nourishment that all I could do was fall back on the very few skills that I inately seem to have -- reading, thinking, listening to music.

In this sickness, the health
of art revived me.





In the darkness, a voice
just like it's supposed to
do

rapture comes and we wake
to our own self
be true, to our

impulses relax, to our
passions
divide

and now from
the top